The Taker of Souls
The Taker of Souls, also known as Shaitan, is a terrifying dark entity with frightening powers and the main antagonist of the 2013 remake horror film Evil Dead. Taker of Souls is the name given to one of the most dangerous Deadites in the Evil Dead franchise that even so powerful that it became equivalent to Evil Ash himself. This unique and malicious entity is the only known Deadite with powers that rivals with Kandarian Demon itself as some of their powers are confirmed similar. Its main goal is to acquire 5 souls to conjure and unleash a powerful demon known as The Abomination, terrifying being whom serves as embodiment of its physical form. The Taker of Souls succeeds in acquiring the souls needed and allows it to summon its avatar/physical manifestation, the Abomination who emerges from the depths of Hell, but Mia kills the Abomination by slicing its face with a chainsaw. It was portrayed by multiple actors and actresses simultaneously, whom are Phoenix Connoly (in the first on-screen host at the beginning of the film), Jane Levy (when possessed Mia), Rupert Degas (voice only), and Randal Wilson (Abomination Mia form). Background Like other Deadites, Taker of Souls is the entity from another world that can be summoned by a variant of Necronomicon which in this case, Naturom Demonto. The first time It went rampage was can be seen at the beginning of the movie where it possessed a teenager and caused chaos where it killed her mother before flees and captured by rednecks under his father’s orders. The old lady who assisted redneck and the girl's father has the girl burned alive to ensure that Taker of Soul won't steal another soul as it has acquired one from the girl's mother. The reluctant father was forced to tell the girl the truth about what has happened to her mother before Taker of Soul took over her mind and taunted him. The father then burned her alive where Taker of Soul roars in the mixture of pain and pleasure. Although, it felt helpless when the man shot her in the head with a shotgun, killing both it and it's host, resulting it banished to the underworld where it came from and only able to gain one soul, in which the rest would be required in the events of the film later on. Events in the Film Summoned and Possessing Mia The Taker of Soul was unwittingly summoned when Eric deciphered a passage in Naturom Demonto out loud, where it immediately made it’s way to the cabin and found the perfect host, Mia, whom walking in circle. It revealed it’s presence to the girl in humanoid form which Mia perceived as the twisted, Deadite version of Mia herself (which is actually a form of Taker of Soul uses to stating that it would use her). Soon after the girl tries to escape from the cabin with a car, it causes her car and chasing her. Once Mia tripped to the vines, it appeared before her in it’s humanoid form and vomit tar-like vine that crawls to her leg and goes into her skirt, raping her and claimed her as it’s host. As she screamed in agony, Taker of Soul roars in victory, finally able to start it’s reign of terror. Death Threat to Protagonists After possessed Mia, David finds her curled up in front of an oak tree, scared out of her mind. Back at the cabin, she tells David that she thinks that there is an evil force in there with them, but everyone passes this off as an attempt to get out of the cabin because of withdrawal. David later goes into the cellar to remove the dead cats, taking the bag of cats outside where he finds Grandpa, their dog, wounded by a hammer. At the moment there is a flash back of Mia beating grandpa not long after possession (), a few minutes later grandpa dies. David goes inside the cabin to find Mia, where Olivia then tells him she's in the shower, Mia burns herself badly in the shower by turning the hot water on full blast, fulfilling part of the Book's prophecy that marking Taker of Soul's increased control over her. David begins to drive her to a hospital, but is stopped when he finds that the road has become flooded by a river of fast moving water that is impossible to cross, which either conjured by Taker of Soul itself or it's just the demon's luck due to the rain caused the river flooded the bridge. Back at the cabin, finally gained the total control over Mia's body, it causes her walks in with a shotgun found earlier shoots David in the shoulder. As this happened, the unseen force bursts through the cabin door and flies to Mia. Through her body, Taker of Souls screams as a demonic voice (implied to be Cheryl Williams) taunts the group, and remarks "You're all going to die tonight" in multiple simultaneous voices (implies that at this point, Taker of Soul has summoned some lesser Deadite Spirits on it's disposal, waiting to possesses victims to take their souls) before falling to the ground. Claiming the Souls When Mia falls, David tells Olivia to grab the shotgun, but this is what Taker of Soul planned: Under it's influence, Mia grabs Olivia's arm as her eyes turn blue to yellow as she tackles her, right before vomits a river of blood all over Olivia's face. In retaliation, Olivia throws her into the cellar and Eric locks her in. As Mia tries to break through the cellar, the angered Olivia stated that she would uses more sedates which David agrees, but Eric stated that it won't worked at all as they dealing with otherworldly forces that put Mia under it's control. Shortly after, Olivia goes off to clean herself up, but is then possessed by one of Taker of Soul's Deadite minion through the vomit. Said in the book, Olivia skins off her face with a knife as a worried Eric finds her. Olivia, now a Deadite, attacks him with the knife and stabs him multiple times with a syringe when the latter caught her castrating her own face into glasgow smile. Injured, Eric manages to stay alive and kills her with a large shard of toilet. The Deadite Olivia only succeed to claimed Olivia's soul, but Taker of Soul still have the plan for the next. Natalie, whom asked by David to get some supplies, hearing noises coming from the cellar, goes off to look. She then is tricked into entering the cellar by Taker of Soul whom uses Mia's crying voices as bait. Once Natalie realized that it was a trap, she attempting to escape, only to be pinned by the possessed Mia and bites into Natalie's left hand. Mia then proceeds to grab a box-cutter and splits her own tongue before kissing Natalie. David fortunately interferes as this happens, where he immediately forces them apart. Taker of Soul then states that Mia's soul is "being raped in hell.". Angry, David chains the cellar shut, unaware with it's confident smile. Later, Natalie's hand becomes infected as it grows throughout her arm with another Deadite spirit now started to possessed her. Barely resisted the Deadite's control over her body, she immediately grabs the electric knife, intending to cut it off. Taker of Soul obviously opposes this, only to cackle when she does it anyway as the attempt was indeed futile. Thanks with it's tongue kiss on Natalie, the Deadite spirit that tries to possessed her now succeed in taking over her body. Meanwhile, Eric tells David about Taker of Soul's plan: Once the evil consumes five souls, the sky will bleed once again, and the Abomination shall rise from hell. He also tells him that the only way to save Mia's soul is to kill her, either an alive burial, bodily dismemberment, or purification by fire. David is hesitant at first, until Natalie, now another Deadite, attacks the two men with a screwdriver. Both terribly injured, David finally shoots a gun in her other arm and blows it off. Natalie, who is no longer under the Deadite's influence, asks David, "Why are you hurting me?" and "Why does my face hurt?" then dies from blood loss with the Deadite spirit has claimed her soul for it's master. Expelled from Mia After a while, David brings Eric outside the cabin. David, making up his mind, decides to throw gasoline all over the cabin to burn the place down. However, Mia begins to sing a lullaby when they were both young as children, which actually Taker of Soul's self-defense attempt to survive until became Abomination. Upon hearing this, David finds it impossible to kill her. Instead, he plans to bury her outside the cabin and collects a few supplies. A moment later, he goes down into the cellar to capture her, but she attacks him with the box-cutter. She then shoves his head underwater and begins to drown him. Suddenly, Eric appears and hits her over the head, knocking her unconscious, but not before getting stabbed by Mia's box-cutter. David, now saved, mourns Eric's death. As David begins to bury Mia, she wakes up as herself, telling David she couldn't breathe and panics. David continues to bury her, knowing if he releases her, she will attack him. Furious that the lullaby which it sang previously as self-defense attempt backfires, it angrily uses both his and Mia's past against him, only to be failed with David eventually buried her and Taker of Soul alive, resulting it ultimately expelled from Mia's body. Murdering David As David succeed in reviving Mia, the now furious Taker of Soul has conjured a Deadite Spirit to possesses Eric's body after taking the latter's soul. After a short reunion between siblings, David tells her to wait by the car while he goes back inside to get the car keys. Inside, he grabs the keys, catching an eye of a picture of Mia, Eric, Olivia and him sitting on a couch, smiling at the camera. When David continues to turn around with a sorrowful look overcoming his face, he gets stabbed in the neck with a pair of pliers by a possessed Eric. David manages to escape as Eric watches him. Mia, seeing her brother injured, attempts to escape with him, but he opposes and proceeds to push her out the door and lock it. Despite Mia's screams, David shoots the canister of gasoline inside, igniting the whole cabin in flames, killing him. Final Showdown and Defeat As blood begins to rain down from the sky, the demon rises from the ground, appearing as an evil doppelganger of Mia. The demon grabs Mia by the wrist, burning her, before she tears her arm away and runs for the Jeep, planning to escape; however, the demon bursts through the window and burns Mia's leg, but she manages to escape its grip and crawls into a small foxhole beneath the shed. Mia takes refuge in the shed and searches for a weapon, nearly grabbing a machete. Instead, Mia opts to protect herself with a chainsaw and fills it up with gas, but the lid rolls away from her. As she reaches for the lid to the chainsaw's gasoline tank, the demon appears, having pursued her through the foxhole, growling and clawing at Mia, who hides behind some shelving in an attempt to buy some time to crank the chainsaw. The demon responds by arming itself with the machete and stabbing through the wall, eventually slicing Mia's leg. Mia escapes by knocking out a wooden board, allowing her to crawl out of the shed. She hides under the Jeep, while the demon emerges from the shed, still wielding the machete. Mia proceeds to amputate the entity's legs, but this backfires and the demon pushes the Jeep over, pinning Mia's arm to the ground. Cornered, Mia is forced to rip her own arm off in an effort to escape. As the legless demon threatens her, Mia responds by shoving the chainsaw into its face, bisecting it. As the demon's maimed form is swallowed by the bloody ground, the blood rain ceases and Mia retrieves the buckhorn necklace her brother had given her, putting it on. She walks away from the burning cabin, disappearing into the woods. The Naturm Demonto is seen nearby the cabin, flipping closed. In an alternate ending, a bloody Mia is walking down a stretch of road when she loses consciousness, most likely from blood loss due to the injuries she sustained in her final fight with the Taker of Souls. A motorist stops to help her and take her to the hospital, before Mia's eyes open, now demonic. Personality and Traits Taker of Souls shows abnormal behaviour and traitd unlike regular Deadites or Kandarian Demon. It has tendency to hurt itself before eventually attack its victims, whether for scare tactic or mere pleasure. Even initially, it has few speaking lines during the course of the film, suggesting that when summoned, it was weak before gaining souls until it is powerful enough to communicate with the others. Taker of Soul possesses a number of powers as Deadite spirit, which are: *'Demonic Body Manifestation': It has ability to physically manifests itself while not possessing someone. Initially, it taking form of mock-up version of Mia when it chases and rapes her. Later, once acquire 5 souls, it eventually summons Abomination, which is served as its true form: a twisted monster that mimicking nude female human. This form is dubbed as Abomination Mia. Like Evil Ash, it's appearance as result of Taker of Souls' possession over Mia due to it also taken her worst traits. *'Supernatural Durability': Displayed as Abomination Mia when it was not bothered when both of its legs are sliced by Mia in a surprise attack from under the jeep. When possessing Mia previously, Taker of Soul also displayed this by withstanding the injuries on her tongue that she cut with a boxcutter before tongue-kiss Natalie. *'Possession': It can possesses a victim with the gruesome way where in Mia's case was raping her with tar-like vine. *'Supernatural Strength': Displayed as Abomination Mia, where it can shatter glasses simply by thrusting them and flip a jeep where Mia hides like lifting a paper. *'Thermokinesis': Displayed as Abomination Mia, where it can burns Mia's hand with a mere touch. *'Soul Collecting and Empowerement': It require 5 souls to summon Abomination, its true physical form that contained in Hell. *'Limited Deadite Control': Like Kandarian Demon, Taker of Soul can control lesser Deadite spirits to do it's bidding, though it somewhat limited as it can only controlled one at a time. It's unclear whether this unique deadite hate sunlight, but there are known three methods to force it out from its host's body, which are: *Burn the host alive. *Bury the host alive. *Dismembers the host's body. If one of these 3 methods used, Take of Souls will be forced to release the host and had to find another. However, the safest method is bury the host alive. Interestingly, if the host released from it's control while his/her body damaged, their body will return to normal, which implies that the one that received all injuries is Taker of Soul itself, not it's host. Taker of Soul’s Lesser Deadites Like Kandarian Demon, Taker of Soul is capable to conjure and control it’s own Deadite thrall. Unlike Regular Deadites however, Taker of Soul’s Deadites are less intelligent (which is shown where they were shown rarely speak), far more zombie-like in behavior, and more masochistic. Taker of Soul’s Deadites also more durable than regular Deadites as they still able to fight in spite of suffering severe injuries as if the said injuries are nothing, except the grave destruction of the brain. Notable Deadites includes: *Deadite Olivia: Conjured where it possessed Olivia where through Mia’s body, Taker of Souls marked Olivia via vomit on her face. It then revealed it’s presence in the mirror where it warped the nurse’s reflection before possessing her. The process causes her unwittingly pee on her pants. She goes to attack Eric when he caught her castrating her own face started from her cheeks. She nearly causes the man blind one eye with a syringe and is killed once the shakened Eric bashed her head to death. *Deadite Natalie: Conjured where it possessed her both through marking a curse on Natalie’s hand and tongue kiss on her lips. *Deadite Eric: Final deadite that possessed Eric's corpse soon after Taker of Soul once expelled on Mia's body as the last ditch to gained a final soul. Destroyed once David set the cabin ablaze. *Deadite Mia: First and main Deadite that Taker of Soul used to communicate with it's victims. Through this deadite it can control other lesser Deadite to do it's bidding until David exorcized her back. Quotes Gallery EvilDead20134895.jpg|The Taker of Souls as Abomination Mia. Evil-dead-review.jpg|As Deadite Mia Shaitan's YOU THINK YOU'RE SO SMART.jpg|Taker of Soul's confident giggles as it's still has another way to have it's thrall to possesses Natalie Taker of Soul's possible original form.jpg|Taker of Soul's possible original form which implies that it was male Taker of Soul vs Mia.jpg|Taker of Soul's death Trivia *Despite being replaced Kandarian Demon in the remake and 4th sequel in the Evil Dead series, Taker of Souls is heavily referenced to the said demon in the previous movies. They also displays several similarities and characteristics: **Both were summoned via variant of Necronomicon tomes (Necronomicon Ex-Mortis for Kandarian Demon and Naturom Demonto for the Taker of Souls). **Both possessed female protagonists (Cheryl for the Kandarian Demon and Mia for the Taker of Souls) after first raping them with trees, and later forcing others to lock them. **Both then proceed to possess/corrupt other victims and cause chaos as the movie progresses. **Due to having possessed the protagonist for certain amount of time until being expelled from their body, the Taker of Souls and Kandarian Demon took some traits from them as part of their final physical form manifests (the Taker of Souls as Abomination Mia because it possessed Mia and the Evil Force manifests as Evil Ash for possessing Ash previously). **Both the Taker of Souls and Kandarian Demon cause their respective protagonist opponent to cut one of their arms during the battle (the Taker of Souls as Abomination Mia lift a car that crushes Mia's left arm which forces Mia to pull her arm which severed it completely in process, while Kandarian Demon tries to possess Ash for the second time where it only able to control one of his arms, forcing Ash to cut it). **Finally, and ironically their physical manifestation is destroyed by their real counterparts (Abomination Mia sliced by Mia's chainsaw and Evil Ash is thrown by Ash with a giant catapult along with ignited gunpowder in which explosion destroyed him). *But unlike the Kandarian Demon, the Taker of Souls also has some difference: **It was able to take Mia's appearance even before possessed her so Mia can see it unlike tge Kandarian Demon that remained unseen only through viewer's point of view until fourth episode of Ash vs. Evil Dead where the Kandarian Demon's main form is a jet of huge, yellowish demonic mist, albeit it can be assumed not fully as the Taker only having small amount of screen time as it did this. **How the Taker of Souls and the Kandarian Demon used trees to rape both girls before possessing them are slighty different: While the Evil Force possessed the trees to rape Cheryl straight away, the Taker utilize another way: control vines from trees to ensnare Mia, then vomits an additional slimy vine to rape her. 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